Ban stops top officials from working for hostile foreign governments
S. 2132 — CLEAR Path Act · Filed by John Cornyn (R-TX) · 4 cosponsors · Introduced Jun 18, 2025 · Passed chamber
Your members of Congress
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What it does
The bill stops senior U.S. officials from working for foreign governments called countries of concern after they leave office. The ban lasts forever for officials hired after the bill passes. After five years, the ban ends for new officials. Congress can vote to keep it going.
Who it affects
Former senior U.S. officials are affected. They cannot work for or help hostile foreign governments after they leave office. The rule applies only to officials hired after the bill becomes law.
One thing to notice
The ban only applies to officials hired after the bill passes. Officials already working in government are not affected.
From the analysis of the bill text, linked under Primary records below.
Where it stands
4 cosponsors: 3 Democrats, 1 Republicans.
- Jun 18, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- Jun 18, 2025 — Referred to Senate Committee on the Judiciary · Congress.gov: “Read twice and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary”
- Jan 15, 2026 — Reported out of committee · Congress.gov: “Committee on the Judiciary. Ordered to be reported with an amendment in the nature of a substitute favorably”
- Apr 21, 2026 — Passed the Senate · Congress.gov: “Passed Senate with an amendment by Voice Vote. (consideration: CR S1854; text of amendment in the nature of a…”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
2 groups reported lobbying about this bill. They filed 2 reports from Dec 2025 to Jun 2026.
Those reports show $270,000 in lobbying spending. Each report lists about 62 bills. So that money was not all for this bill.
More groups named this bill than 41% of bills with any report.
John Cornyn, who sponsored the bill, received $2,074,650 from PACs for the 2026 election.
- Fdd Action — $240,000 in 1 report
- Transparency International U.S. (a Project of the Fund for Constitutional Govt) — $30,000 in 1 report
Lobbying is legal. These reports show who lobbied about this bill, not what changed.
Words to know
- countries of concern — Foreign governments the State Department says are hostile to the United States
- lobbying — Trying to influence lawmakers about a bill. Companies and groups pay people to do this.
- PACs — Groups that collect money and give it to candidates for office.
- sponsored — To sponsor a bill is to introduce it in Congress and put your name on it.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (7,716 characters) on Jul 10, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 14,358 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 20, 2026 · page rendered 2026-09-19.
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